I posted regarding this problem in an earlier thread about losing relatively large and complex *remember* buffers that I had forgotten to save (C-c C-c). My usage has improved, and this has been much less of a problem; however, after another, particularly painful incident, I am again studying this problem. I have tested two solutions that were presented earlier, but neither one of them specifically solves this problem. Each of them is a workaround, and either one is acceptable as such, but requires certain adjustments, albeit this is only slightly annoying; I can learn to work around them if need be.

I may not have elucidated the problem clearly in the original post. I use remember every day, and have at least 50 different templates. I have gotten used to saving the notes with C-c C-c each time; however, when I'm working late, am a bit tired, or the stress from work has gotten to me, I might---as I did yesterday---spend a couple of hours studying a problem and make a complex table of the partition structure of my machine, only to realize after I had changed buffers a couple of times, and used remember at least once more, only to discover that the I had failed to save the *remember* template buffer. Alas! I throw up my hands in despair, but remembering that the digital computer, I search for a backup file. Backups have saved me hundreds of hours, if not days, of work in the past. Need I say more?

The *remember* buffer is not saved or backed up in any way. The ideal solution would be for this buffer to be automatically backed up---to actually exist somewhere and be backed up just as a textmode buffer is.

Carsten earlier posted an at least partial solution to this problem.
#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
    (defadvice remember-finalize (before org-save-and-detach activate)
      (when buffer-file-name
        (save-buffer)
        (setq buffer-file-name nil)))

    (add-hook 'remember-mode-hook
       (lambda ()
         (org-set-local 'change-major-mode-with-file-name nil)
         (write-file "~/path/to/remember_backup.org")
         (org-set-local 'remember-buffer (buffer-name)))
       'append)
#+END_SRC

He said he would not include it in org-mode because one would be "using remember out of its realm by making is a work buffer instead of a quick capture-or-note buffer." I admit I have used a wrench as a hammer at times, to the chagrin of the true mechanic. I have found remember a useful tool. I admit I haven't understood its mechanism: I have even been confused by it. I use the templates, but am still a novice: I have written fairly complicated org-remember templates, but I still haven't gotten my head entirely around what they can do. I have used it in whatever manner seemed useful at the time. So it is actually helpful to see how org-remember is intended to be used, that one should immediately file his notes. But I have found this tool so useful (and my wrench is always handier than my hammer!) in my own way, that I will continue to operate in my unorthodox mode.

All's the same, I hope a convincing argument to include this solution. I would second the need to include a numbered backup mechanism to cover recursive calls to org-remember.

That being said, I have also started using "%!" in some templates. It feels clumsy, but for the most part solves the problem, since I seldom use the refiling options on the remember splash header. It doesn't work as nicely with complicated templates with several prompts, and it is capricious: for example, I don't understand how to force the cursor to a particular position.

This problem happens at such a low frequency, for me, that an automatic backup mechanism would be sufficient, especially if it recognized a second instance of the *remember* buffer.

Something more transparent would be ideal. I'm not sure how to organize that the *remember* buffer would automatically be saved as a file transparently, with numbered backups for new *remember* buffers.

Remember rocks!

Alan

On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 5:28 AM, Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> wrote:

org-remember -- use a file

On more than one occasion, I have composed something using
org-remember, and mistakenly hit a key for killing the
buffer. With all buffers except org-remember, this kills a
buffer if it has no unsaved text, and asks what buffer to
kill if it does, at which point I quit.

With org-remember, the buffer has unsaved text, but it is
not associated with a file, so it loses text.

Text is probably lost upon a crash also.

My suggestion is this. Perhaps org-remember can have a file
(this fixes the killing problem), and that file can be
autosaved (this fixes the crash problem).[fn:4]

There is one more case in which text is lost. You might run
org-remember from org-remember and not undo. My existing
proposal is to allow calling o-r from o-r. I think that
solves it. In such a case, however, it will be necessary
to allow more than one such file.

[fn:4] In principle, if the target location is known, the
file can be an indirect buffer into that buffer. This has
other advantages, including having all in-buffer settings
work, being able to isearch, having a crashed org-remember
stay where it is supposed to be (albeit unfinished) and so
on. But it wouldn't be necessary to get that fancy. Just
any file would work.

--
Myalgic encephalomyelitis denialism is causing death (decades early;
Jason et al. 2006) and severe suffering (worse than nearly all other
diseases studied; e.g. Schweitzer et al. 1995) and grossly corrupting
science. http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/What_Is_ME_What_Is_CFS.htm

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